Sermon delivered on the Twenty-third Sunday
after Trinity (4th
Before Advent) the 30th
October 2016 by Bishop Nicholas JG Sykes in the St. Alban’s
congregation of the Church of England, George Town, Cayman Islands in
the service of the Holy Eucharist.

Scriptures: Isaiah 1:10-18 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12 S. Luke 19:1-10

Isaiah 1: 16f “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the
evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to
do good; seek justice, correct oppression.”

HEALING AND RECONCILIATION
It is central to our understanding of life as Christians that we men
and women cannot live in a lasting peace together unless and until
there is a cleansing to our hearts, and a real repentance. This is
certainly affirmed by the words of the text we have just heard; and
in Christ this is something that God may accomplish deep within us.

Now there are on
various occasions, including in modern Remembrance Day services,
prayers for reconciliation across the nations and within them. Prayer
may also be offered on various occasions for reconciliation between
people who follow different religions.
There is nothing necessarily unreasonable about such prayers. The
ever-present question though is how people of different faiths and
understandings, such as Christianity, Islam and atheism, who in
important respects have diametrically opposing world-views, can
really be reconciled except at a superficial level. Illustrating
this, there is no shortage of opinion, expressed both by
intellectuals and by simple people, and from both a religious or an
atheistic point of view, not only disputing Christianity but arguing
that it is a fundamentally harmful force both to individuals and to
society. In response to this a robust defence of Christianity’s
positive influence upon a person has been made by a number of
authors, including most notably in the last century CS Lewis. More
recently the former Bishop of Rochester, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali,
has been similarly outspoken, as has Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo of the
Barnabas Fund movement. Indeed their defence asserts what I
steadfastly believe, that “Christianity is the very root and
foundation of Western civilization.” It follows that to assume, as
many now do, that every conceivable level, extent or character of
diversity contributes positively to a rich, stable and cohesive
society is fundamentally erroneous. Accordingly, the proposition that
I should be content never to enquire into the beliefs of the person
situated next to me, or the person I am considering hiring to work
for me, would not indicate a mutual acceptance, but rather, at best
the acceptance of estrangement.

GOD’S PEOPLE MUST REPENT TO BE RECONCILED TO HIM
In the first lesson today from Isaiah chapter 1 verses 10-18, the
prophet proclaims to Judah and Jerusalem a God who cannot endure the
combination of “iniquity and solemn assembly”, and eventually it
is made clear that the iniquity of God’s people includes blood on
their hands. The core of God’s quarrel with His own people here is
that while they purport to worship Him with all necessary style and
elaboration, they do not even stop at murder, or, perhaps, such
severe oppression of the poor or the vulnerable that they bring the
lives of these unfortunate ones down to the ground. God cannot be
reconciled to His own people without their genuine repentance: “Wash
yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings
before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice,
correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come
now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like
crimson, they shall become like wool.”

REMOVAL OF SINS
The prophetic word makes it clear that God’s quarrel with His own
Old Covenant people is over the state of their hearts - their will
and intention - which is most dreadfully displeasing to Him. The
prophetic word makes clear also that their hearts’ state must be
causing terrible rifts between a man and his neighbour, since God’s
quarrel is that those with power are oppressing even to death those
who have no power. It is clear that the prescription, as it were, for
reconciliation within the community is that the offenders become
reconciled to God. Nothing has changed in that from all the years
between those days and our own. If we are looking for reconciliation
among men, we must seek first to be reconciled with God, and for
that, cleansing and repentance and the acceptance of His grace are
necessary. But let us not miss the hopeful note in this word. The
Lord invites His people to come and reason with Him. He has made a
demand and now He makes a promise: “Though your sins are like
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like
crimson, they shall become like wool.” The removal of the sins is
not merely necessary: it is possible, because it is something that
the Lord Himself can bring about.

PEACE ONLY ON GOD’S TERMS
The truth is that the Lord is always engaged in
a kind of war with those who are being unjust, and they may only make
peace with Him on His terms. In our second lesson from 2
Thessalonians, the apostle writes to a church which is being
oppressed and persecuted by the secular power, a situation that is
widespread today. He is not telling them that God regards those who
persecute them in the same light as He regards them. No, the apostle
tells those humble and persecuted believers that while their
affliction will serve to increase their steadfastness and faith, and
declare them to be worthy of the kingdom of God for which they are
suffering, those who are afflicting them will be justly repaid by God
with His
affliction. While those who are being persecuted will one day enjoy
rest, those who are treating them so unjustly will on that day
receive God’s retribution. That does not mean that God has already
closed the door on any of the unjust who may one day repent; it is,
however, describing the state of things currently. God’s holy wrath
and everlasting condemnation are realities, and without repentance
and cleansing, all of those who have bullied, tortured and killed
God’s little ones in this life will endure endless ruin and
separation from Christ. In various parts of the world, such
persecutors might represent the secular power, or they might be local
extremists of one sort or another, or indeed invading armies. We in
the modern western churches get it completely wrong if we assert that
God’s love for all men means that He does not make justifiable
distinctions or does not positively discriminate between us. Of
course He does positively and justly discriminate - that’s what His
judgment is all about. And we can make peace with Him only on His
terms, not on ours.

THE REPENTANCE OF ZACCHAEUS
Our Gospel today describes Zacchaeus, a man of Jericho, unpopular
with his fellow-Jews, who was (we might say) engaged in a personal
surveillance of the Son of God during a journey through that town.
His assumption, it appears, was that he would be able to see this
wonderful Person, and yet remain unseen himself and on the periphery
of what was going on. He perhaps hoped to see Jesus in the same way
one might expect to see visiting royalty passing by. In this case,
however, the Royal Prince did the unexpected: He told the thrilled
and chastened Zacchaeus to get down from his vantage point, come
along with Him, and receive Him in his own house! Zacchaeus was a
despised person among his fellow-Jews because he was in the service
of the oppressive Roman authorities in their perceived role of
bleeding from them as much tax as possible - and taking an
over-generous cut of it himself. His undertaking to give back to the
poor a half of his goods and to restore anybody defrauded by him
fourfold was a serious act of repentance. How did he find the heart
to do it? Because Jesus had accepted him. Because those whom Jesus
receives have their scarlet sins made white as snow, as the prophet
Isaiah declared. And this, because Jesus is the Christ who died to
redeem us from death and the power of sin. He was wounded for our
transgressions, bruised for our iniquities; and upon Him was the
chastisement that made us whole, and with His stripes we are healed.
This is the context in which God has provided the way of grace for
our reconciliation with Him, which is our healing at the most
fundamental level, and this also is the context in which the ways are
provided, as for Zacchaeus, so also for ourselves, for our
reconciliation in society with one another.

And so I would like to end with some questions for us to consider.
First, Are “living peaceably with” my neighbour and “being
reconciled to” my neighbour one and the same, or might they
actually be quite different? Secondly, In what way is God calling His
own people to real and tangible reconciliation to Himself in today’s
world? And thirdly, How or in what terms are Christians to convey
God’s call to all people to become reconciled to Him?